Pokemon TCG Decklists and Articles

I don’t yet know if this will be a recurring column or not. I would like it to be, but I’m not sure how well it will be received or if it’s something I will maintain. You see, I have deck ideas every once in a while. This seems to happen more when new cards come out. Usually, I come up with some great new idea. I write up a skeleton decklist, and then I ponder it. In the short term, the pondering process often results in minor tweaks. In the long term (being probably less than a day), it generally results in scrapping the idea because it’s not going to be competitive enough.

I don’t have a lot of opportunity to play weird decks at home. I’d love to try these ideas at league or something. The problem is that I often don’t own all the cards (especially for sets that haven’t been released yet). Also, league is only once a week, and I don’t make it to every session.

This means that the “Stupid Deck Idea” usually doesn’t make it past the initial decklist, therefore I will never know if the idea had any actual merit. As it is, these “Stupid Deck Ideas” may have some usefulness. Maybe the Pokemon have some good synergy, but the trainer line was all wrong to support them. Maybe there’s a hidden combo that hadn’t been widely considered before, but without testing, it’ll never be discovered. Maybe a year or two from now a new card comes out that makes the deck work, and people can find this archive. I don’t know. All I know is that the idea is going to get shelved, so I’ll put it here and see what happens. Maybe it gets universally ignored, but maybe someone takes it and runs with it.

Zangoose can do a few main things. He can stall by Inviting up a benched Claydol (or some costly retreater). He can get cheap prizes on Magikarp/Hoppip/etc. with the help of Expert Belt, Crobat G, or Kingdra Prime. If the opponent has a tech fire Pokemon on the bench (which would hurt Kingdra’s damage output), Zangoose can “Invite and Strike” it up so that Kingdra can attack it next turn. Finally, Zangoose’s “Chop Up” attack can get multiple KOs in a single turn with the help of Crobat/Kingdra’s damage placement.

Kingdra can be a quick attacker when the opponent has no fire Pokemon. He’ll do 60 for a single water energy. That’s a good attack, but he can also place damage counters on your opponent’s Pokemon with his “Spray Splash” power. This process is aided by Crobat G’s “Flash Bite” power.

The rest of the deck is mainly to support these two attackers. You can use Uxie Lv. X to attack, but it’s mainly used for card drawing. Chatot MD gives you some card drawing and also gives you the Chatter lock against Spiritomb. The Spiritomb in this deck is to slow your opponent while evolving your own Kingdra.

That’s about it for now. If you want to discuss it further, leave a comment. Otherwise, optimizing the deck is left as an exercise for the reader. If you do build it, PLEASE let me know how it goes.